One possibility is to write a little package, say titlepage.sty
; in this package you can define some commands to provide the information that you will use for the titlepage and define a command to effectively produce the titlepage.
A little example: since standard LaTeX provides \author
, \title
, and \date
, in the folowing example I only defined \subtitle
and \institute
in a way completley analogous to the definition of \author
.
Once all the preparations have been done, you define your command to produce the titlepage, using the desired formatting for the elements that will be used.
Here's a very simple version of mytitlepage.sty
:
\NeedsTeXFormat{LaTeX2e}
\ProvidesPackage{mytitlepage}
\def\subtitle#1{\gdef\@subtitle{#1}}
\def\@subtitle{\@latex@warning@no@line{No \noexpand\subtitle given}}
\def\institute#1{\gdef\@institute{#1}}
\def\@institute{\@latex@warning@no@line{No \noexpand\institute given}}
\newcommand\mytitlepage{%
\clearpage
\thispagestyle{empty}
{\noindent\huge\bfseries\@author\par}
\vspace*{.25\textheight}
{\raggedleft\Huge\itshape\@title\par
\large\normalfont\@subtitle\par}
\vfill
{\Large\noindent\@institute\par\medskip
\noindent\large\@date\par}
\clearpage
}
\endinput
You can save this file in your local tree and then all you have to do is to load the package in the preamble of your document, use the commands to provide the fields and invoke \mytitlepage
:
\documentclass{book}
\usepackage{mytitlepage}
\title{The Title}
\subtitle{The Subtitle}
\author{The Author}
\institute{The Institute}
\date{The date}
\begin{document}
\mytitlepage
\end{document}
Normally, when a book is to be printed double-sided, the pages are not centred. Instead, a larger margin is allowed on the outer edges so that when looking at a double-page spread, the white space is evenly distributed.
However, if you do not want this, you can keep the double-sided features while centring pages:
\documentclass[a4paper,11pt,twoside]{book}% note: a4paper - not a4
\usepackage[hmarginratio=1:1]{geometry}% equal left and right margins
\newcommand*{\titleTMB}{\begingroup% Three Men in a Boat
\newlength{\drop}
\setlength{\drop}{0.1\textheight}
\centering
\settowidth{\unitlength}{\LARGE THE BOOK OF CONUNDRUMS}
\vspace*{\baselineskip}
{\large\scshape Many names}\\[\baselineskip]
\rule{\unitlength}{1.6pt}\vspace*{-\baselineskip}\vspace*{2pt}
\rule{\unitlength}{0.4pt}\\[\baselineskip]
{\LARGE My book's title}\\[\baselineskip]
\rule{\unitlength}{0.4pt}\vspace*{-\baselineskip}\vspace{3.2pt}
\rule{\unitlength}{1.6pt}\\[\baselineskip]
\vfill
{\small\scshape 11 March 2014}\par
\vspace*{\drop}
\endgroup}
\begin{document}
\begin{titlepage}
\titleTMB
\end{titlepage}
\end{document}
The title page is not intended to be the cover. It is, rather the title page which is placed inside the book. So the margins should be consistent with those on other pages. However, if you are making a quasi-book in which the title page will be the cover, you might want only the title page to be centred.
\documentclass[a4paper,11pt,twoside]{book}
\usepackage[hmarginratio=1:1]{geometry}
\usepackage{kantlipsum}
\newcommand*{\titleTMB}{\begingroup% Three Men in a Boat
\newlength{\drop}
\setlength{\drop}{0.1\textheight}
\centering
\settowidth{\unitlength}{\LARGE THE BOOK OF CONUNDRUMS}
\vspace*{\baselineskip}
{\large\scshape Many names}\\[\baselineskip]
\rule{\unitlength}{1.6pt}\vspace*{-\baselineskip}\vspace*{2pt}
\rule{\unitlength}{0.4pt}\\[\baselineskip]
{\LARGE My book's title}\\[\baselineskip]
\rule{\unitlength}{0.4pt}\vspace*{-\baselineskip}\vspace{3.2pt}
\rule{\unitlength}{1.6pt}\\[\baselineskip]
\vfill
{\small\scshape 11 March 2014}\par
\vspace*{\drop}
\endgroup}
\begin{document}
\begin{titlepage}
\titleTMB
\end{titlepage}
\newgeometry{hmarginratio=2:3}
\kant[1-5]
\end{document}
Best Answer
You can do that with the
titling
package: